Wall Street dumped AI chip stocks. VCs just valued Nominal at $3 billion, triple its price in March
Nominal raised $240 million and Path Robotics $300 million in two days, as investors chase AI for factories and defense hardware instead of chatbots.
Public markets just spent a week dumping AI chip stocks. Private investors went the other way. On Monday, Austin-based Nominal raised $240 million at a $3 billion valuation, triple what it was worth eight months ago, TechCrunch reported. On Tuesday, Columbus-based Path Robotics raised $300 million at a $2.45 billion valuation, the company said.
Neither company makes chatbots. Both sell AI for building physical things: Nominal for testing and engineering hardware such as aircraft and nuclear reactors, Path for robotic welding on factory floors. And both count major defense firms among their customers. That is where venture money is chasing growth while the Nvidia sell-off rattles the public AI trade.
Two rounds, $540 million, two days#
| Company | Round | Valuation | Lead investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominal | $240M Series C | $3B | Lightspeed, Insight Partners |
| Path Robotics | $300M Series E | $2.45B | Georgian |
Sources: TechCrunch, Nominal, Path Robotics via Business Wire.
Nominal: from $1 billion to $3 billion since March#
Nominal is four years old. In March it raised a $155 million Series B extension at a $1 billion valuation, led by Trae Stephens at Founders Fund, in a deal the investor offered before the company asked, TechCrunch reported. Eight months later its price has tripled.
Source: TechCrunch
Show the numbers
| Round | Valuation |
|---|---|
| Series B extension, Mar 2026 | $1B |
| Series C, Nov 2026 | $3B |
The company says it serves more than 80 commercial and government organizations, including five of the seven largest defense contractors, according to its announcement. One key customer is Anduril, the defense company Stephens co-founded. In October the Air Force picked Nominal for a $71.2 million Strategic Funding Increase investment, a program that requires matching money from outside the Air Force.
CEO Cameron McCord, a former Navy submarine officer and Anduril alum, announced the round on X. He also launched what Nominal calls a "Hardware Intelligence Platform," meant to bring AI agents into hardware design, testing and production. The investor list he posted includes Sequoia, General Catalyst, Founders Fund and Lockheed Martin Ventures.
Path Robotics: revenue up 17-fold in 18 months#
Path builds AI that lets robots weld, a skilled job that has been hard to automate because parts and joints vary so much. Its annual recurring revenue grew 17-fold over the past 18 months, the company said. Its customers include shipbuilder HII, Lockheed Martin and drone-boat maker Saronic, plus mid-sized manufacturers. Earlier this year it signed a $600 million performance-based production deal with HII for US Navy shipbuilding.
Georgian led the round, with D. E. Shaw Ventures and NAVER Ventures joining existing backers including Tiger Global, Drive Capital and Yamaha Motor Ventures. Path has raised more than $610 million since its 2018 founding. It nearly doubled its workforce in a year, up 97%, and plans to reach 400 employees by year-end.
CEO Andrew Lonsberry framed the raise around American manufacturing. He wrote on X that he learned to weld at 8 in his family's garage in Ohio, and that the shops he talked to all had the same problem: "Our backlog is growing, but our production is stagnant."
"Our goal isn't to automate one step, but to automate the entire factory," Lonsberry said in the company's release. Path plans to take its welding AI, called Obsidian, into other production-line tasks starting in 2027.
Why investors are paying up#
Three forces explain the prices.
- Defense budgets. Both companies count top defense contractors as customers. Lockheed Martin Ventures backs Nominal and is a Path customer. "As demand for critical defense systems continues to grow, scaling production requires innovative approaches," said Chris Moran of Lockheed Martin Ventures in Path's release.
- Labor shortages. Path says manufacturers want to expand output but cannot hire enough skilled workers. Robots that weld solve a real bottleneck.
- "Physical AI" as the next bet. With chatbot valuations under pressure and the Anthropic IPO testing what public investors will pay, AI that runs factories and test ranges offers a different story.
The catch#
These are private valuations set by a small group of investors. They are not tested by public markets, and neither company disclosed revenue figures in these announcements. Path's 17-fold growth is a ratio, not a dollar amount, and Nominal gave customer counts rather than sales. For workers, the pitch cuts both ways: automating welding could help factories grow, but it is also a bet that machines take on more skilled jobs. Our layoffs roundup tracks where companies are already cutting.
Watch whether more defense-tech and factory AI startups raise at big step-ups this month, and whether the public sell-off in AI eventually reaches private prices.
Cite this article
Patrick Karsh. “Wall Street dumped AI chip stocks. VCs just valued Nominal at $3 billion, triple its price in March.” 567 Business. Published 2026-11-10. https://567business.com/news/path-robotics-nominal-hardware-startups-raise
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